PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3040, 29 March 1917, Page 4

PROGRESS OF THE WAR

Thb chief development in tho Western theatre disclosed at time of writing is a material extension of tho French advance in the area south of the* Oise. Actual events reported in this region cast some doubt upon the accuracy of a Paris message whioh states that tho Germans seem to be making a. stand upon the inassif of St. Gobain, \vhich is an elaborately fortified redoubt stretching through rugged and difficult country from the Oise, east of Ohauny, through the two forests of Coucy, almost to tho Aisne. It is added that between the southern end of the St. Gobain massif and the Aisne the enemy is established in a labyrinth of concreted trenohes (the so-called HiNdenbueo position) connected by. covered ways, and protected by seven or eight lines of barbed , wire. Presumably these- statements aro based upon information, but particulars given to-day in official reports indicate that the French have already deeply penetrated the lino described, aud aro making rapid progress through tho forest country in which the Germans arc supposed to be making a, stand.. The French have uuuupicd the whol.is ■nC.tlic lower (western) forest of C'oucy, and now* having occup,ied a, lino of

intervening villages, arc attacking the outskirts of the St. Gobain forest and the high forest of Goucy, further cast. The enemy has been thrown back beyond the BarisisServais line (Barisis has been captured), which means that in the .area immediately south of the Oise the French have advanced six miles east of Chauny. It is noteworthy that Sorvais stands close to a railway by which the enemy forces south of the Oise have hitherto been in touch with St. Quentin on the north, as well as with the territory to the south and east.

It will be observed that the enemy line, as it is described in the Paris message quoted above, has already been penetrated and turned in the north, and it is in some danger of being , turned also in the- district north, of the Aisne, where the French have captured strong positions, and are making important headway. There is no reason to doubt that the Germans contemplated a stand in the rough forest country between the Oise and the Aisne, and prepared positions accordingly, but on present' appearances their prospects of holding on for any length of time in this region are dubious. In their own official report thoy make the damaging admission that they gave way south'of the Oise before a, threatened encircling movement, and there is every indication that the French are enterprisingly developing the success they have already won.

These events on tho southern por-. tion of the front on _ which the enemy has been conducting his retreat may presently assume decisive importance. Meantime tho Allies further north, on the Oambrai-St. Quentin front, are meeting _ stubborn ' resistance, and tho circumstances reported support the theory that the enemy hopes to make a stand on a line covering these junctions. On the middle part of this sector the British have pushed forward and captured some villages, but in the locality of Beaumotz, on the approach to Oambrai from tho west, a stationary struggle is. reported. Indeed, the enemy in this quarter counter-attacked with such vigour as to temporarily recover soino. lost ground. An artillery battle montioned in a French com* miiniqxic as being in progress southwest and south of St. Quentjn _is another indication that the Allies on the Cambrai-St. Quontin front aro no longer • dealing with rearguards, but with enemy forces of considerable strength. It seems very possible that tho operations reported to-day may speedily develop into & great and decisive battle.

From time to time lately a suggestive Efcir of. activity has been noted on tho Macedonian front, and to-day tho French report a local advance in Serbian Macedonia and the defeat of a Bulgarian attack further west. The wisdom of launching an offensive from tho Salonika base is still a subject of discussion in , England, but there can be little doubt, that tho Macedonian campaign takes a not unimportant place in the war plans, and that the offensivo will be vigorously pressed at tho appointed time. The fact that tho Allies are pursuing the campaign on their present extended lino affords fairly conblusivo evidence that no withdrawalis intended, and it cannot be supposed that any idea is entertained of merely marking timo in Macedonia. When Mji. Lloyd Geokge returned to England from tho war conference held at Rome during tho first week in January ho stated that tho delegates had "faced tho whole situation, .probed it thoroughly, looked difficulties in tho face, and mado arrangements to deal with them." Touching upon this statement with an eye to the position in Macedonia, the military contributor of tho Fortnightly Bei view remarked that if for whatever reason—shortago of transport, difficulties of Bupply, the submarino menace, or other_ causo—there wero objections to using tho Salonika base for an offensivo campaign, not an hpur should bo lost in diverting the troops to another ' theatre g| war. "It has been well said," he added, "that , negative strategy is itho negation of victory." A daily paper remarkablo for its outspokenness recently warned' the public that to continue the campaign in Macedonia would bo the way to lose the war. To this it may bo added that to lock up half a million men in an entrenched camp with nothing to do except to mark time is not the way to win it. Tho question is one for-tho Allied Governments to decide by tho light of evidonce which they alono possess) and the sources of which are necessarily closed to the general public." It is certainly to bo assumed that the Allies have formulated a definite policy in Macedonia as in other theatres of war, and, as has been said, the continuation of the campaign in its present shape, seems to warrant a belief that an offensive from the Salonika base has a place in the_ scheme of tho Allies' general offensive. ■■','■

A Petroghad report states that General Ivanoff has been arrested at Kieff. It will be remembered that General Ivanoff held the Russian southern command until the early part of last year, when he was succeeded by General , Brusiloff. He commanded the Russian southern armies in the days of the trying retreat through Galicia before the onslaughts of Mackensen's phalanx, and subsequently directed the winter offensive in Galicia, which is believed to have prevented the Germans from following up their invasion of Serbia by an attack upon the Allied forces in Greece. General Ivanoff's military record is ono of distinguished service in times and circumstances of extreme difficulty, but his arrest suggests that he is accused or suspected of complicity with the party overthrown in the revolution. t « « t _ When the German Government intimated in January last that traffic of hospital ships on the North Sea and Channel routes would no longer bo tolerated, it made known its deliberate intention of committing the basest crime conceivable in war. The intimation has now been followed by the actual crime... It is reported today that the hospital ship Asturias was torpedoed without warning, and sunk, with a loss of 31 lives, apart from twelve missing. In issuing its infamous intimation the Gorman Government made a concocted charge that British hospital ships had beon used for the transport of munitions. The charge was explicitly -denied by the Foreign Oilico, which- staled that Uritish hospital ships had never been used for tho transport of. munitions or J

troops, or in any way contrary to the Hague Convention. ' The German accusation, of course, / was bogus, and manufactured for the occasion. In point of fact, submarino attacks upon hospital fihips are not a new departure in German war policy. The Asturias, which has now been sunk, was attacked by a submarine off Havre as long ago as February 1, 1915, but the torpedo fortunately missed its mark. The Portugal, a Franco-Russian hospital ship, x was torpedoed and sunk off the coast of Eastern Anatolia just a year ago, with a losb of over 100 killed, including many women. This was a case of deliberate attack by a ■German submarine in broad daylight. The loss of the hospital ship Anglia with about 85 lives, on November 17, 1915, was caused by her striking a mine. The Britannic, which went down in the Aegean Sea on November 21, 1016, was at first reported fo have been sunk by mine or torpedo, and the Admiralty inquiry (according to the London Times) failed to establish which was responsible, there being considerable conflict of evidence. In the case of the Braemar Castle, another British hospital ship sunk within three days in the samo waters, , the evidence was also inconclusive.

Now that Germany has carried out her criminal threat of January, last, the British Government is called upon to give effect to the announcement it made in reply • to that threat " . . . if tho threat is carried out reprisals will immediately be taken by tho British authorities concerned." What form the reprisals will take has not been stated, but in referring to the subject at the time tho London Spectator repeated a suggestion which deserves to bo kopt to the fore, and possibly indicates tho lines upon which the Imperial Government will act. "The killing of prisoners," the Spectator remarked, "is a disgraceful violation of the contract entered into with each prisoner when ho was allowed—it may have beon unnecessarily and far too generously allowed—to surrender.The threat of punishment against guilty persons, however mghly placed, not excepting the' Kaiser himself, is a .different matter altogether. ' We shall win our way to the position of being able to iniiicb such punishment. The Germans have onsurcd that,. for us. The most halting spirit will be nerved to a truly awful resolution by tho damnable intention of the Germans to sink hospital ships for purely military reasons. By: moral turpitudo they are delivering; themselves into.our hands." A decision by the British Government to hold the Kaiser and other highly-placed Germans personally responsible for crimes hko the sinking of the Asturias would certainly bo justified from every point Precox dent for action on these lines is not wanting. When the Gallipbli campaign was under way tho Turks hit upon the idea of quartering a numbor of interned aliens in one of the towns on the Peninsula which the Allies had attacked from tho air. The British Government at once announced that Enver Pasha and othor Turkish notables would be held personally responsible for the safety of these prisoners,' and the latter were speedily removed from the danger zono.;